


Strangelove

by feralfrenzy



Category: American Psycho - All Media Types
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Horror, M/M, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-16
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-14 17:48:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28799355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralfrenzy/pseuds/feralfrenzy
Summary: He did kill Paul Owen. Chopped him up with an axe. Brought him out in the slums to let him rot in salt and lime. Something, somewhere just must be covering for him. An unseen director moving the pieces to match perfectly in Patrick’s play.
Relationships: Patrick Bateman/Paul Owen
Comments: 5
Kudos: 13





	Strangelove

**Author's Note:**

> Will you take the pain I will give to you  
> Again and again and will you return it?

Paul Owens takes five minutes to die, another twenty to stop bleeding.

Patrick drops his body off at his Hell’s Kitchen apartment - lime and salts it, lets it rot in the bathtub. Then Patrick heads to Paul's apartment, and plans.

He packs a suitcase, leaves a voice recording. After all, Patrick is smart, he’s good at this. He has it all under control, despite the impulsiveness of the murder. 

When he wakes up in Paul's bed and doesn’t even remember going to sleep, he figures that the excitement (and his prescription xanax) finally got to him. An unremarkable end to an exciting night. It happens, after all - he’s woken up to enough random corpses in his master bedroom to know that sometimes his brain just shuts off when he gets this way. He cleans himself up quickly and adjusts his tie in Paul’s wardrobe, remarking on the presence of a personal tanning bed humming away in a hall bedroom before he leaves.

Later, he showers thrice and does a calming sea-extract mineral mask to make up for all the extra stress he put on his skin by sleeping on different sheets. While naked, he examines a mark on his neck in the mirror - small, 3 cm in diameter, a bruise. 

_A hickey almost_ , he thinks to himself with a terse grimace. He doesn't remember any recent touchy prostitutes and he never lets Evelyn near his face, so he huffs angrily and chalks it up to a reaction to the cheap plastic of the rain slicker, making a note to get Jean to order something compatible with his allergen test.

He thinks nothing of it, happy to be finally rid of that Fisher-account-stealing, Dorsia-reservation-getting, Downtown-loving _whore_ Paul Owen. 

That night, he sleeps in his own bed - comfortable and with no worries.

* * *

When a detective comes probing him, as he expected they would, he has nothing to hide. All the evidence of his crime had been quickly disposed of, after all. He’s open, honest, and It’s almost criminal how he plays the man in his hands. What isn’t expected, however, is that just as soon as the investigation began - it’s called off. 

“Someone spotted Paul Owen in London last week,” The detective says, almost disappointed that his lead in Patrick ran dry. “So, we’re closing this case - his girlfriend will be happy, I suppose.” 

“Huh?” Patrick says before he can catch himself. He composes himself instantly and excuses the detective from his office, ignoring the bewilderment bubbling under his skin. 

“Jean?” He says, and can hear her keyboard clicks abstain as he grabs her attention. “Do you remember who I took out for dinner last week?”

Jean hums quietly, fishing a small booklet from her desk and leafing through it. “Paul Owen, Texarkana. You had a reservation for you, Paul, and Evelyn.” 

Patrick’s eyes squint against the fluorescent lights of his office. So, he did go to dinner with Paul, but then…..? 

“Do you want to plan another dinner?” Jean fetches a red ball-point from her desk. “Paul contacted me earlier today that his plane back arrives at 8pm. I can put in a reservation before then.” 

Patrick’s throat tightens, “You spoke to him?”

She shakes her head, smile tight. “His secretary.” 

Patrick clenches and unclenches his fist. “No reservation then, I have plans tonight.” He leaves quickly, leaving her to her work. 

He heads for Hell’s Kitchen, and checks the bathtub. 

It stinks, _putrid_ , but confirms his suspicions. 

He _did_ kill Paul Owen. Chopped him up with an axe. Brought him out in the slums to let him rot in salt and lime. Something, somewhere just must be covering for him. An unseen director moving the pieces to match perfectly in Patrick’s play. 

He hums, pulling the tarp back over what used to be the stock-broker in question, and leaves without another word. Quick feet, calm mind, and a heartbeat steady in his chest.

Paul is dead, he knows it. 

* * *

A ring breaks the silence in his dark apartment.

Patrick is awoken, at some ungodly hour of the night, by his phone - a Ericsson Hotline Pocket that cost him over 5000$ to procure. He pulls up the antenna and for a moment, hesitates. Despite the expense and luxury of the item, Patrick debates throwing it out of his high-rise.

Ultimately, he answers. 

“Patrick Bateman speaking, who is this?” He asks, voice clipped. _2:30 AM_ reads back to him from the wall-clock in bright red. 

“Patrick,” A familiar voice, so similar to his own. “Have you been messing with my answering machine?” 

A pause, then he repeats: “ _Who is this_?” 

“I wanted to plan another get together, maybe not get so wasted this time.” A warm laugh comes from the other end of the line, then - a gurgle. 

Patrick sits there with his mouth hanging open, tiredness draining from his body and being replaced with cold dread. 

“Do you always get your dates this drunk?”

_No._

“Patrick?”

He hangs up. 

* * *

It’s only much later that he thinks of the ordeal again, this time perched over a half-empty jack and coke at the same joint that Timothy threw himself from the railing at. He nurses his drink, bored, until a small smug hum awakens him from his mulling.

"Patrick,” Curruthers lisps, sitting across from him at the bar, lips pursed over a glass of sparkling white chardonnay. “I'm so upset with you."

"And why is that, Luis?" Patrick asks, annoyance clear-cut as the glass making up his Rolex 1982 Submariner he is thinking about shoving down the hardbody bartender’s throat.

"Patrick, you should have told me..." Luis leans in towards him and continues, voice barely audible over the sound of 'Don't You Want Me' playing on the club’s speaker system. "-that you already were seeing someone. I made myself look like a fool."

Patrick quirks a brow, disgust filling his features. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

" _Of course_ , it's our dirty little secret after all." Luis winks at him, over the top, before turning back to his chardonnay. Patrick wants to slam his head into the bar top until it resembles a paste. "Owen, though? Expensive taste. I can't blame you."

Patrick feels sweat bead on his temple and his heart beats fast in his chest, but he blames it on the line of cocaine he did an hour prior. “Owen is in London, remember? Fisher account.” He stutters out, less confident than he had hoped.

Luis smiles, saying nothing. 

Patrick excuses himself, Jack and coke left without fanfare as he goes to call a cab. He waves down the first one he sees - a nasty yellow number he wouldn't be caught dead in had the circumstances not been so dire. He throws a bundle of cash to the driver in a frenzy and barks at him to head for the American Garden Buildings on West Eighty-First Street. He needs to get home before his bubbling mania boils over into a full-blown panic attack.

He sees for a brief moment in the rear-view mirror; Paul Owen waving at him, clean-pressed Armani coat waving in the cold night-time New York breeze, half his face crushed in and dripping onto the pavement. 

* * *

He revisits Hell’s Kitchen.

There is no bathtub.

He leaves.

* * *

Patrick wakes up in his bed naked. Not unusual, but the presence of another certainly is. 

Paul is next to him, skin close enough that the outside observer - unaware of all the inner machinations of Patrick’s head - would call it an embrace. Patrick doesn’t move, barely breathes. 

Paul’s face wound gurgles - the gap where his nose, mouth, and left eye used to be leaking out onto Patrick’s ten-thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets. His one good eye, glassy and a beautiful blue hue, stares unfocused at Patrick.

"Morning, Marcus." The other man hums.

Patrick seethes at the misnomer, and squints at him. All he sees is teeth, and blood, and sinew.

Paul laughs sleepily - at him? At their situation? Patrick doesn't know, his tenuous-at-best grasp on reality is failing him.

"Did you know that my _girlfriend_ hired a detective?" Paul leans into Patrick's ear. "That they thought you _killed me_?"

Patrick thinks he feels one of Paul's teeth fall out, clinking against his collarbone and getting lost in the sheets. He feels like an all-encompassing void, deep and as vacant as the hole he put in Paul Owen’s head. 

"Can you believe that - _you_? A murderer?"

Patrick closes his eyes. His throat feels needle thin.

“I’m afraid I can’t.” 

He thinks he feels lips brush his jawline, his ear, he can't tell anymore. All flesh feels the same to him.

  
  



End file.
